Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Debates of Oct. 24th, 2024
This is page numbers of the Hansard for the 20th Assembly, 1st Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was know.
Topics
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, again, let me direct that one over to assistant deputy minister MacKay, please.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Celeste Mackay
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The deferred maintenance projects, this fund is intended for repairs that were delayed and backlogged due to budget limitations. It's used to address maintenance issues like structural repairs, building code upgrades, exterior envelope failures, those types of things that maybe have been put off for other priorities over the years but as they become more of a priority, they enter our work plan.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Shauna Morgan Yellowknife North
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I guess my area of confusion -- and maybe the Minister can clear this up -- is that on the one hand it seems to be the place where projects that keep getting deferred end up that aren't necessarily top of the priority list but, on the other hand, we see that some of these projects are there because it's a life safety issue. And so I don't know how both of those can be true. Can the Minister explain? Thank you.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I mean, there's -- yes, I mean, I'll perhaps try one more time to direct it to the assistant deputy minister, but just to start out, I mean, there are -- projects that are coming in under the small cap fund or small -- that are under the definition of being small capital projects, so things that under the threshold of $600,000, those items would tend to be within each department which holds their own individual small capital projects. And then beyond that, at some time they do make their way in to deferred maintenance which puts them under the rubric of being an infrastructure managed project. As there's not enough space to do everything in small cap, there's obviously not enough space to do everything in deferred maintenance. I mean, determining when it's a deferred maintenance and not, as it becomes more and more serious it certainly ratchets up the scale. If there's opportunities to find funding for standalone projects, then those tend to be the larger projects that we would go out and seek independent or third-party funding or, really, you know, quite frankly, federal government funding. But the federal government pools don't necessarily align to deferred maintenance and tend to align to new projects, so this is where we get into the challenge of trying to achieve all of the goals and all of the things, you know, with the different pools and pots that are available to us. So it's a risk management assessment. Maybe I'll stop there, Mr. Chair, and if there -- if that is helpful, I'll pause, and if not, we can perhaps direct it again to our assistant deputy minister.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Celeste Mackay
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Minister noted, it is a risk management approach. Things that are of immediate risk are dealt with immediately through the operations and maintenance fund. If it's not an immediate risk, then maybe it's something that's dealt with through the deferred maintenance project. We have building condition assessment of every building that's done on a rotating five-year basis, and it looks at every single system of every single asset that we have. So through that system, we're able to see, you know, which risks can we manage with different tools in our tool belt. So this is one of the tools in our tool belt.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Shauna Morgan Yellowknife North
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, I know that I'll just be continuing to learn about the capital planning process and, you know, certainly my concern is that we ensure that we are able to address all of the most severe most urgent life safety issues and we don't have projects competing with each other that are all at that level, and that we also have enough money to ensure that we're taking care of our assets and preventing sort of disasters or breakdowns or life safety issues down the road. So I'll just continue to have this on my mind but keep learning about the process. Thank you.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Daniel McNeely Sahtu
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll just make a reference to the sweeper designated there for Norman Wells as part of the asset upgrade. That particular unit was brought to my attention several times there. Being so old, it was getting difficult to get replacement parts. But this -- my question to the Minister is this whole area of asset management and positioning, particularly positioning your fuel supply tanks, one of the things that we have learned in our discussion during the wildfires in Fort Good Hope was positioning fuel supply or storage in designated communities. Has this been discussed, this part of the asset management and acquisition of new tanks and positioning in different communities in case there's a fire in Deline or one in Good Hope again so that there's sufficient inventory to support our aircrafts with the Department of ECC? Thank you there, Mr. Chair.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, yes, I'm glad to acknowledge the one item there that -- under asset management that is looking for a replacement. I would note there is quite a bit of work actually happening in this space of improving our fuel services in terms of the storage and the access. In fact, it's a pretty significant overhaul. Mr. Chair, it does happen to fall under programs and services section, so I certainly can speak to it now but -- or could come back to when we hit that section. I'm in the Chair's hands.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Kate Reid Great Slave
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just a really basic question to start. The capital asset retrofit fund, there's two lines here, TCA and DM. Could the Minister explain to me what the difference is, please. Thank you.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th
Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are the different funds from which they are -- to which they are allotted. Thank you.
Committee Motion 44-20(1): Tabled Document 193-20(1): 2025-2026 Capital Estimates - Education, Culture and Employment - Deferral of Department, Carried
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
October 24th